Is It Time For Breast-fed Babies like S. Korea To Grow Up?

International affairs have been dominating our news coverage as of late. So of course, multiple discussions have been going on just next door from here, at Facebook. I was about to jump in to the discussion myself, when I saw a comment that immediately jump-started the rusty gears of thought to begin cranking in my head. Someone had mentioned that ‘for decades, our leaders have promised South Korea… that if an event ever happened in which North Korea was to invade, we would be there to defend them.’ This argument, of course, makes sense and is difficult to refuteat face value (after all, who is in favor of our country leaving an Alli with their private parts in their hands- in the face of a brutal aggressor)? If this is Bastiat’s “seen,” what is the “unseen?”

As I was following this conversation I was reminded of a hypothetical argument of which I had with someone who wanted to know what we should do in the case of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. I argued that we should ride to the rescue- no matter what-because in a way, we had caused Taiwan to be dependent upon us by forbidding them to retake their homeland during the Korean “war.” (I mention this just to let you know how I came to this conclusion. Also, by the way, all of this is not limited to South Korea- it applies to any U.S. “protectorate”) …and I asked myself, ‘how is it that so many nations are dependent upon our protection?’ Then it occurred to me, that what we have been doing throughout and every since the Cold War, was/is subsidizing these nations’ defense spending by stationing our U.S. Military there.

In the same way that America has made entire generations of Social Security/Medicare/Medicaid recipients WARDS of SOCIETY, these nations are WARDS of the U.S. MILITARY. If you look over the numbers, you’ll find that South Korea’s GDP is $1.36 Trillion – which on a per capita basis is EXCEPTIONAL for a “developing” nation. Taking those numbers into account, how can we explain that South Korea would need our help to defend themselves from a nation with a (CIA-estimated) GDP of $40 Billion? To put this in perspective, South Korea could spend more than North Korea on their Military and not break a sweat, for they are a little more than 30x the economic activity of the North. So why do we need to prop them up…? Because we have told them for over 50 years that we would. Until we cut them loose, they will never be ready to defend themselves.